


a subtle fire races under my skin

by LadyRaincloud



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: F/F, Fluff Bingo, Hurt/Comfort, PWP (posted without proofing), Podcast WLW Week, apparently it's, embarrassingly tender, in this fandom we stan healthy communication and non monogamous queer relationships, kissing scars, no beta we die like men, non graphic description of burn scars, so for once I'm in time for something, still can't believe I'm the only person on ao3 using that tag, the first time I've ever done that and I'm sure the resulting typos and whatnot are appalling, the hurt's all happened the comfort isn't very comforting but here we are, the rest of you gotta step your game up, they are in love, yeah Caroline's still in love with Quanyii they have an open relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 12:53:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18388814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRaincloud/pseuds/LadyRaincloud
Summary: Sir Caroline makes it back to the Citadel, to the place she's beginning to call home, and to the Queen she might never dare to.A fill for fluff bingo, in which Claire requested 'kissing scars' for these two.Title from a Sappho fragment, also at Claire's suggestion.





	a subtle fire races under my skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wlwAquaman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wlwAquaman/gifts).



The Citadel is dark when Queen Mira receives them, and Caroline wonders if it's because of how much time its inhabitants had spent in enforced brightness, burning candles down to the wicks, scorching the stone walls to crumbling from the heat emanating off them from constant use they weren't meant for.

The guards that move aside to let them make their way towards the throne are nothing more than shadowy, silent figures. They're the first other people they've seen for miles, since the crowds of other villages they passed through had thinned into uninhabited wilds the closer they'd drawn to the Citadel. It's always been quieter than the rowdy, always crowded streets of Caroline's home in the Frosts, but she's never known the place she's growing to see as home this quiet. The inns are shut up, the blacksmiths and vendors abandoned earlier than usual even for this time of night, and she imagines most of the citizens have retreated to their homes, wanting to be with their loved ones after the threat had passed, and savour what they'd been in fear of losing. She speeds up her step.

Even Angelo beside her is quiet, his chattering that Caroline had grown to believe was a perpetual hazard of his companionship having faded the closer they drew to the Citadel on their journey. She imagines the quiet is more unsettling to him, whose vibrancy and confidence feeds off others. She's always envied him that, before now, but he seems to shrink, his huge form diminishing as the bounce in his step fades, while she imagines she can see her own shadow stretching longer behind her as the echo from her steps and the gentle clank of her armour fills the throne room.

Angelo falls back a little, letting her take the lead, as they reach the head of the line of guards flanking the sides of the throne room, and can see a figure emerging from the imposing shadow the throne casts. Mira seems smaller than usual, her movements lost in the darkness pressing in on them as she approaches. Caroline stops in her tracks as the Queen moves to meet her, unable to see her in the darkness, tracking her approach only by the swish of her gown brushing against the stone floors. She can still barely see her when she's standing right in front of her, only knowing her presence from the heat of her nearly pressed right up against Caroline.

She sinks to her knees in front of her Queen, reaching blindly for the hand she can only blurrily make out the edges of as it extends towards her face. Once she's taken it in her own mailed hands, she lowers her head to brush her lips across the back of it, the first display of true courtly deference she's really ever shown Mira. The skin of her face catches slightly on the edges of bandages; silk, from their feel, gentle on the skin, worlds away from the rough homespun Caroline is used to binding her own wounds with. She is glad that the Queen's been taken care of, treated with the gentle care she deserves while her knights were on the other side of the world, too far to protect her from the encroaching threat to their people's lives and their Queen's mind.

Mira still doesn't say anything, but her other hand touches lightly against the top of Caroline's head, making its way down to rest against her cheek.

They're in their own prism of intimacy, more fragile but more insular than any magic bubble, where no one can do any more than guess at what passes between them, where even the two of them can pretend later that it never happened. Caroline grips Mira's hand a little more tightly in her own, turns it over so the palm is facing upwards, and fumbles for the edges of the bandage. After finally managing to unpick the knot with her shaking fingers – and when did that happen? – she unwinds the silk, and brushes the pads of her fingers across the exposed palm as gently as she can, probing the silk-soft unmarked flesh of hands that have never seen hard weather or outdoor work, until they glance across the raised edges of scar tissue. It's only with her face lowered this close to Mira's hand that Caroline can make out, if only faintly in the gloom, the burn scar blossoming across her palm. Caroline leaves her head bent in deference, but raises her eyes, having adjusted somewhat to the darkness, to meet Mira's. The Queen's face is as impassive and unreadable as ever, but there's something Caroline can't read in her eyes, something she's seen only a few times. Without breaking their gaze, she touches her lips as gently as she can to the raised and tender flesh. Moving to the place where the Queen's thumb meets her index finger, she presses as gentle a kiss as she can. She can't see Mira's lips part, but she can hear the soft intake of breath from above her, as she moves her lips along her palm to repeat the kisses on every part of Mira's skin that the fire had touched.

Maybe later, she'll see them in the light. Maybe later, she'll be able to visit the Queen's chambers and hold her, kiss more of her than this, with no one else uncomfortably present that they have to mute their reunion for. Mira has seen all of Caroline's scars, traced them with her fingers and her lips, but this is the first blemish Caroline has ever seen on her Queen's skin. And it's perhaps worse that it came from nothing she could protect her from or fight off. True, she'd killed the monster, defeated the threat – well, she and all the others, and Caroline wonders at the distance between the version of herself who'd left Mira and the Citadel, who could never have accepted help from the strange Northerners she'd reluctantly accepted as her fellows, much less admitted to it – but she could do nothing at the attack it had waged on her Queen's mind, hadn't even known of it. Caroline would do battle with the fire that had dared to touch Mira, if she could. For now, all she can do is hope that Mira can read the reverence and regret in the heat of her lips.

They stay like that for a while, Caroline's head bent over Mira's one hand while the other cups her face, the tips of her fingers threading into close cropped hair, before the moment is broken. It has to end, at some point, but Caroline can't help but hate the guard who steps forwards and clears his throat a little. Mira's hand leaves her face, and gently grasps Caroline's hands where they hold her scarred one, pulling them to rest against her chest as Caroline rises to unsteady feet.

'Sir Caroline,' the Queen's voice is as calm and measured as ever – it's no longer just the two of them, she's speaking for the room at large to hear – even as her hands shake around Caroline's, 'our Citadel thanks you for your service in protecting us.'

'My Queen,' Caroline forces her voice to remain steady. 'I thank you for the same.'

Mira's hands release hers, and Caroline turns to step away so Angelo can come forward and receive his welcome and thanks, already anticipating his voice booming out to echo from every corner of the room - presumably he'll find it again in his Queen's presence, and after the reassurance that his home survived, if not just as he left it - when a hand gently touches against her shoulder, and she turns her head back. Mira crouches, as elegant as ever, to retrieve the silk bandage from where it had fluttered to the floors, before rising again and resting one palm flat against the breastplate of Caroline's armour. She leans forward, her scarf brushing against Caroline's jaw, and reaches up to tuck the scrap of silk into the top of Caroline's armour, to rest against her heart. A lady's favour, for her most faithful knight. Caroline manages not to reach up to touch it after stepping away again, enduring the remainder of the formalities concerning their return only through its softness against her skin.

She doesn't know when she and Mira will be able to exchange their relief at her return and their sorrow for what one another had endured while they'd been separated. But she's always been good at waiting, they both have. And for now, this is enough.


End file.
